


A Daughter's Devotion

by within_a_dream



Series: A Mother's Love [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantine Lives, Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6257692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="http://www.victoriana.com/weddingdresses/wedding-dress-styles.html">Image Source</a>: a wedding dress ca 1832.</p></blockquote>





	A Daughter's Devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookmountains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookmountains/gifts).



Cosette had lost count of the times she’d asked Papa about her mother, always receiving the same answer: _She loved you very much. She didn’t leave by choice. She would do anything to find her way back to you._ Eventually, she’d stopped asking, instead clinging to the faint memory of golden hair and a bright smile. _She would do anything to come back to you_ meant that her mother was never coming back, in Cosette’s estimation. Either something was keeping her away permanently, or her papa had lied—and he would never lie to her, although she did suspect he was keeping her from the full truth. So she set aside her childish dreams of a reunion, and only occasionally allowed herself to indulge in daydreams of what the mysterious Fantine would be like.

Cosette grew up, donning corsets and falling in love and always feeling the sharp edges of a gap where her mother should be. Then her Marius was shot, and she found herself consumed with an entirely new sort of worry. She sat by his bedside every day, and watched her father’s face grow tighter with worry. Finally, the fever broke, and Cosette was filled with such relief that she was nearly able to ignore that Papa’s worry hadn’t abated.

As she left to visit Marius one morning, Cosette opened the door to find a woman standing on the stoop, preparing to knock.

“Can I help you?” Cosette asked. The woman’s face brushed at long-forgotten memories, but she didn’t dare hope.

“Cosette?” The woman’s eyes began to glisten with tears, and the hope fluttering in Cosette’s heart became harder to suppress. “It’s me, it’s your mother.”

She embraced Fantine, noticing through her joy that she could feel the outline of every one of her mother’s ribs through her threadbare dress. “Come inside, Mama.”

They sat down for a cup of tea, although Cosette was too busy looking between Papa and her mother— _her mother—_ and grinning to drink much.

“They released me in June, and I set about finding you straight away. Only, no one could tell me where you’d gone, Monsieur Madeleine, and it took me until now to find you. I hardly expected to find Cosette so well—you are a saint, caring for her as if she were your own.”

“It was the least I could do,” Cosette’s papa said.

Between the mention of release, her mother’s ill state of health, and the strange name she called Papa, uneasiness was beginning to temper Cosette’s happiness. She pushed it aside—plenty of time to ponder these mysteries later.

“Oh, Mama, I’ve so much to tell you! I’m to be married—” Cosette trailed off, remembering what she’d been on her way to do when her mother had appeared. “I was meant to visit him this morning. He’s been injured, you see, and he’s trapped with only his gloomy old grandfather for company unless I go to rescue him.”

“You should go to him,” Fantine said, smiling. “I’ll still be here when you come.

And despite Cosette’s unconscious fears to the contrary, she was.

  


**Author's Note:**

> [Image Source](http://www.victoriana.com/weddingdresses/wedding-dress-styles.html): a wedding dress ca 1832.


End file.
